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Shanghainese phonology
Following conventions of Chinese syllable structure, Shanghainese syllables can be divided into initials and finals. The initial occupies the first part of the syllable. The final occupies the second part of the syllable and can be divided further into an optional medial and an obligatory rime (sometimes spelled rhyme). Tone is also a feature of the syllable in Shanghainese. Syllabic tone, which is typical to the other Sinitic languages, has largely become verbal tone in Shanghainese. Initials Shanghainese has a set of tenuis, voiceless aspirated and voiced plosives and affricates, as well as a set of voiceless and voiced fricatives. Alveolo-palatal initials are also present in Shanghainese. Voiced stops are phonetically voiceless with slack voice phonation in stressed, word initial position.Ladefoged, Peter, Maddieson, Ian. The Sounds of the World's Languages. Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, p. 64-66. This phonation (often referred to as murmur) also occurs in zero onset syllables, syllables beginning with fricatives, and syllables beginning with sonorants. These consonants are true voiced in intervocalic position.Zhu, Xiaonong S. Shanghai Tonetics. Lincom Europa, 1999, p. 12. Finals The table below lists the vowel nuclei of Shanghainese The following chart lists all possible finals (medial + nucleus + coda) in Shanghainese represented in IPA.Zhu, Xiaonong S. Shanghai Tonetics. Lincom Europa, 1999, p. 14-17. :Syllabic continuants: The transcriptions used above are broad and the following points are of note when pertaining to actual pronunciation: * and are pronounced with similar tongue position, but the former is pronounced with compressed lip rounding while the latter is pronounced with protruded lip rounding ( and respectively). *The vowel pairs , , and are each pronounced nearly identically ( , , and respectively) despite having different conventional transcriptions. * is pronounced before rounded vowels. The Middle Chinese rimes are retained, while and are either retained as -ŋ or have disappeared in Shanghainese. Middle Chinese rimes have become glottal stops, .Svantesson, Jan-Olof. "Shanghai Vowels," Lund University, Department of Linguistics, Working Papers, 35:191-202 Tones Shanghainese has five phonetically distinguishable tones for single syllables said in isolation. These tones are illustrated below in Chao tone names. In terms of Middle Chinese tone designations, the yin tone category has three tones (yinshang and yinqu tones have merged into one tone), while the yang category has two tones (the yangping, yangshang, and yangqu have merged into one tone).Chen, Zhongmin. Studies in Dialects in the Shanghai Area. Lincom Europa, 2003, p. 74. The conditioning factors which led to the yin–yang split still exist in Shanghainese, as they do in other Wu dialects: yang tones are only found with voiced initials , while the yin tones are only found with voiceless initials. The ru tones are abrupt, and describe those rimes which end in a glottal stop . That is, both the yin–yang distinction and the ru tones are allophonic (dependent on syllabic structure). Shanghainese has only a two-way phonemic tone contrast,Introduction to Shanghainese. Pronunciation (Part 3 - Tones and Pitch Accent) falling vs rising, and then only in open syllables with voiceless initials. Tone sandhi Tone sandhi is a process whereby adjacent tones undergo dramatic alteration in connected speech. Similar to other Northern Wu dialects, Shanghainese is characterized by two forms of tone sandhi: a word tone sandhi and a phrasal tone sandhi. Word tone sandhi in Shanghainese can be described as left-prominent and is characterized by a dominance of the first syllable over the contour of the entire tone domain. As a result, the underlying tones of syllables other than the leftmost syllable, have no effect on the tone contour of the domain. The pattern is generally described as tone spreading (T1-4) or tone shifting (T5, except for 4- and 5-syllable compounds, which can undergo spreading or shifting). The table below illustrates possible tone combinations. As an example, in isolation, the two syllables of the word for China are pronounced with T1 and T4: and . However, when pronounced in combination, T1 from spreads over the compound resulting in the following pattern . Similarly, the syllables in a common expression for foolish have the following underlying phonemic and tonal representations: (T5), (T1), and (T2). However, the syllables in combination exhibit the T5 shifting pattern where the first-syllable T5 shifts to the last syllable in the domain: . Phrasal tone sandhi in Shanghainese can be described as right-prominent and is characterized by a right syllable retaining its underlying tone and a left syllable receiving a mid-level tone based on the underlying tone's register. The table below indicates possible left syllable tones in right-prominent compounds. For instance, when combined, ("buy") and ("wine") become ("buy wine"). Sometimes meaning can change based on whether left-prominent or right-prominent sandhi is used. For example, ("fry") and ("noodle") when pronounced (i.e., with left-prominent sandhi) means "fried noodles". When pronounced (i.e., with right-prominent sandhi), it means "to fry noodles". References External links * Category:Language phonologies